In a truly friendly, touchingly friendly manner, they only met her in quite modestly circumstanced families--families of a few true artists who yet could accomplish nothing with their work but to honestly and poorly provide for their seven or eight children. Families of simple people, who had formerly been good to Lensky in the difficult beginning of his career, and to whom he always showed the most faithful adherence, the most prodigal generosity. She also felt happy among these plain people.
What wonder that these people would all have gone through fire for him! They would also have all given of their best for Natalie, whom without envy they worshipped with enthusiasm as a queen. They rejoiced that Lensky, their pride, their idol, possessed such a beautiful and distinguished wife--in their eyes the daughter of the emperor would not have been too good for him.
Natalie thanked them for their great attachment, as well as she could; she reckoned it a special favor to receive these modest people in her home, to invite them with their wives and children, to entertain them with distinction, to stuff all the children's pockets full of bonbons, and give them little parting presents.
But intercourse with these poor devils was in reality only a sentimental game, even as intercourse with the artistic élite was nothing but an ideal recreation. Neither the one nor the other sufficed to firmly knit the band between Lensky's wife and his former world, or to keep up his popularity in that world.
* * * * * *
Of all the opposition and difficulty which would arise therefrom for Lensky's future and especially for his yet to be won future as composer, Natalie still suspected nothing. For her, the whole heaven was still blue.
Then the first deep shadow fell on her happiness. Lensky, to whom every long separation from her was unbearable, when he undertook a long tour through central Europe, in spite of her express request, could not resolve to leave her behind with the children, in St. Petersburg. The little children were left under the care of their grandmother.
For the first time, Natalie was no amusing, but a dull and nervous, travelling companion. An unbearable anxiety followed her like a foreboding. All his attempts to console her were in vain.
In Dusseldorf, she received, by telegraph, the news that little Mascha was ill with diphtheria. When she arrived in Petersburg, half dead from anxiety and breathless haste, the child lay in her coffin.
He was almost as desperate as she. He overwhelmed himself with self-reproaches;--who knows, if they had watched the child better, if they had thought of this or that in caring for it.... What torment, to be obliged to say that to one's self! A reproach never passed her lips, she even concealed her tears lest they should sadden him. But from that unhappiness on, something in her formerly so elastic nature, so capable of resistance, was broken forever. The first jubilant time of their marriage was at an end.
* * * * * *
Together with the evermore unpleasant friction with his colleagues, and the great pain for his lost child, still another worry announced itself to Lensky--something gnawing, and incessantly tormenting: a daily increasing money embarrassment. Natalie decidedly spent too much, but quite naïvely, with the firm conviction that she could not exist more economically; wherefore it was doubly hard for him to be finally obliged to tell her that he could not raise the money to continue the household on the footing to which she had been accustomed.
It was quite touching to see how frightened she was when he made her the first communication in reference to it--frightened, not at the prospect of having to save, but only at the thoughtlessness by which she had burdened Lensky with cares. She immediately showed herself ready for the most exaggerated reforms. But to live with his wife like a proletary, in St. Petersburg, among her brilliant relations and friends, he could not bring himself to do.
In the autumn of the same year, he moved with his family to ----, a large German capital, where he had accepted the direction of a significant musical undertaking.
But here the conflict between his artistic and family life which had arisen through his alliance with Natalie, came to light with more detestable clearness.
He was in his element, as an artist whose powers have found a wide, noble sway.
The great musical undertaking, at whose head they had placed him, flourished wonderfully under his lead. The fiery earnestness with which he undertook it won him all musical hearts. Also the atmosphere in ---- was sympathetic to him for other reasons. He had a crowd of old connections there, acquaintances of his first virtuoso period, people who surrounded him, distinguished him, with whom he could speak of his art--which always remained sacred and earnest to him, and never, for him, deteriorated to a more or less noble means of earning his living, or to a social pedestal--in quite a different manner than with the elegant dilettantis who had gradually crowded out every other society from his house in St. Petersburg. They gave one artistic festival after the other in his honor, and all this entertained him.
His wife appeared with him a couple of times on such occasions, then she excused herself--she had no pleasure in them. She felt isolated, an insurmountable home-sickness tormented her.
Without confessing it, for the first time since her marriage the position which she occupied with Lensky angered her.
In St. Petersburg she had always remained with him the Princess Assanow, he had ascended to her world; here she must suddenly satisfy herself with his world. She was too vexed, too angrily excited to seek in this world all the true interest, earnestness, and nobility that were to be found therein.
She had intimate intercourse only with an old friend of her youth, a certain Countess Stolnitzky, who went out but little and consequently had time enough for Natalie.
Lensky begged Natalie to open her drawing-room one or two evenings a week, that is to say to his friends. Natalie's drawing-room became a meeting-place for all kinds of artistic leaders, among which the dramatic element formed the principal contingent, and this chiefly because Lensky wished to have an opera performed.
For him, intercourse with dramatic artists had no unpleasantness; he had been accustomed to it from youth. But it became unpleasant to Natalie after she had satisfied that superficial curiosity which every woman living in severely exclusive circles feels concerning these theatrical people.
The only people that were still more unpleasant to Natalie, in her drawing-room, than this crowd of people still smelling of freshly washed-off paint, were the aristocrats who came there to meet the artists. And many of these came--very many, all who coquetted with a little bit of musical interest--yes, and many others. "Very interesting, these soirées at Lensky's," they always said, when these were spoken of; "very interesting; they always have very good music there, and then one meets a crowd of amusing people whom one never sees anywhere else. And the wife is really charming--quite comme il faut."
"She is a Russian princess," a foreigner interrupted, who belonged to the diplomatic corps.
The native women turned up their noses repellently. They placed no great confidence in the distinction of Russian princesses who married artists.
Natalie was so ignorant of their rooted prejudices that she greeted the ladies who came to her house with the greatest frankness as her equals. She caused offence by her naïveté, and noticed it. People came to Lensky, not to her--if she would only understand that they wished to be as polite as possible to her, in the somewhat narrow limits of well-bred society--but she must understand it.
She did understand. When she observed that most of the ladies accepted her invitations without returning them, yes, when it happened that the art-loving Princess C. sent Lensky an invitation to a soirée, and overlooked his wife, then she understood. It began to tell upon her, to aggravate her.
She fulfilled her duties as hostess with displeasure, did the honors negligently, and did nothing to animate her receptions. My God! people came there to hear music and to rave over her husband,--she was no longer necessary. She became quite foolish and childish.
She was used to the homage that was paid her husband, she would have been fearfully angry if they had not paid him enough; but in Russia, this homage was shown in quite a different, much nobler, intenser form; in Russia he was a great man, before whom every one removed his hat, a sacred being of whom the nation was proud; men and women of the highest rank showed him the same respect.
But in ----, except one or two particularly enthusiastic lovers of music, none of the nobility appeared in his house, with the exception of the ladies. Why did he ask them? He ridiculed them--but yet their flattery pleased him. He had dedicated a composition to more than one of them.
Natalie was almost beside herself with rage. For the first time she felt a certain jealousy. Among others, there was a little dark Polish woman, married to a Swedish diplomat, and separated from him, a Countess Löwenskiold. She purred around him like a kitten.
Formerly he would have noticed the change in Natalie immediately, but for the first time since their marriage he forgot, not only in his study but elsewhere, his wife for his art. He was so happy in his art, so completely occupied with it, that he scarcely noticed the pitiful social pin-pricks which formerly would have caused him vexation enough, and consequently did not consider the importance they had for Natalie.
The study of his opera, for which they had placed at his disposal the best facilities at the command of the ---- Theatre, went steadily forward. The artists liked to work under his direction, and with enthusiasm did their utmost to do justice to his work. Joy fevered in every vein when he came home from the rehearsals.
* * * * * *
It was toward the end of the carnival. One of Lensky's musical soirées had been visited by quite an unusual number of brilliant visitors. A very large number of ladies of the best society had been there.
They had all appeared in brilliant toilets, with bare shoulders, and diamonds and feathers in their hair. Natalie was also in evening dress, while the wives of Lensky's colleagues and all the ladies present not belonging to the court circle had come in high-necked dresses.
When the aristocratic ladies, with profuse thanks for the musical treat offered them, had withdrawn before eleven o'clock, because they must, "alas!" still go "into society," into Natalie's social world, but which was closed to her in ----, Natalie remained the only woman in her drawing-room with bare shoulders.
Lensky, who had just accompanied some tedious Highness politely out of the room, now returned to the music-room, closed the door, behind which the noble patroness had disappeared, and cried gayly: "So, children, now we can be among ourselves, and enjoy a comfortable evening."
"Among ourselves!" These words pierced Natalie like a poisoned stiletto. "Among ourselves!" She bit her lower lip, angrily.
Meanwhile, pushing back the hair from his temples with both hands, Lensky asked: "Would the gentlemen like to play the Schumann E-flat major quartette with me before we sit down to supper?" Then he looked over at Natalie and smiled. She knew that he proposed this wonderful quartette for her sake, because it was her favorite, but she was already so over-excited that the touching little attention made no impression on her. She remained as defiant and bad-tempered as before.
While they played she let her eyes wander gloomily over the already empty hired cane-bottomed chairs, which stood around in regular rows. She asked herself bitterly, what really was the difference between her "reception evenings" and any other concert?--that the people paid their admission with compliments instead of money! And while she made these useless and vexing observations, the most noble music that was ever written vibrated around her heart, like an admonition of how small all these worldly, outward vanities were in comparison with the lofty, god-like being of true art! And her obstinate heart had already begun to understand the sermon and to be ashamed, when she observed two bold eyes of a man staring from across the room at her bare shoulders. The eyes belonged to a certain Mr. Arnold Spatzig, the most influential musical critic and journalist in ----. Scarcely had he noticed that her look met his when he left his chair, in order, crossing the room, to take his place near Natalie, and continue his insolent scrutiny from near by. He was a disagreeable man, with thick lips, spectacles, and boldly displayed cynicism. Natalie, who could not endure him, had formerly tolerated him on Lensky's account. Now she felt so insulted by his manner, that, with the vehement impoliteness of a spoiled woman whose pride is wounded and who is excluded from her natural sphere, she sprang up, and turning her back directly to Mr. Arnold Spatzig, hastened away from him.
And now the quartette was over, and also the supper which followed, exquisite and over-abundant as ever, at which Lensky did the honors with that heartiness, not overlooking the least of his guests, which was peculiar to him.
It was two o'clock, and the house was empty; the lights still burned. Lensky was busy arranging the music on the piano, Natalie stood in the middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, evidently trying to suppress a nervous attack. She held her handkerchief to her lips--it was no use. Suddenly she cried out: "Must I receive these people? I would rather scrub the floor!" And with that she made a gesture as if she would tear something apart.
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He had become deadly pale, and his voice trembled.
She only drew her brows gloomily together and continued to gnaw at her handkerchief.
Then he lost patience. He seized a large Japanese vase, and threw it with such force on the floor that it broke in pieces; then he left the room, slamming the door behind him.
But Natalie looked after him, offended, and broke out in fierce, whimpering sobs.
A few minutes later when she, still weeping and trembling in every limb, leaned against a sofa, in whose cushions she had buried her face, she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up, Lensky had come up to her. The traces of his difficultly mastered irritation were still on his deathly pale face, but he bent down anxiously to her and said gently: "Calm yourself, please, Natalie; it is no matter. Poor Natalie! I should have thought of it sooner. You shall never again receive any one--not a person--who does not please you, only stop crying; that I cannot bear."
At the first friendly word that he said to her, her whole ill humor changed to tormenting remorse and shame. "You will not take what I said to you in earnest," said she. "It is not possible that you should take this madness in earnest. I am so ashamed--ah, I cannot tell you how ashamed I am! I acted unjustifiably, but I was so tired, so nervous--scold me, be angry with me, and only then forgive me, or else your indulgence will oppress me too heavily," and with that she kissed his hands and sobbed--sobbed incessantly.
He caressed her like a little child whom one wishes to soothe, and she continued: "I will suit myself better to my position, I will be friendly to every one--as if I could not make that little sacrifice to your artistic position!"
Then he interrupted her: "I will accept no sacrifice from you, not the slightest, that I cannot do," said he. "What have you to trouble yourself about my artistic position? You have nothing at all to do but to love me and be happy--if you still can," he added softly, with a tenderness that for the first time since his marriage had a bitter savor.
But she looked up at him in the midst of her tears, with glorified happiness. "If I still can?" she whispered, drawing his head down to her--he now sat on the sofa beside her, with his arm around her waist--"if I still can!" His lips met hers, her head sank on his shoulder.
The candles in the chandeliers had burned low down, one of them went out, and in going out threw a couple of sparks down on the pieces of the Japanese vase which Lensky had broken in his anger. He had sent it to Natalie filled with roses, in Rome, while they were betrothed, therefore she loved it and had brought it with them to ----.
His eyes rested on the pieces with a peculiar sad look. "And now lie down and see that you sleep after your excitement," said he to the young wife. She followed him like a little child. He mixed her the sleeping potion of orange essence, to which she was accustomed, and calmed her with pleasant patient words. A happy smile lay on her lips when she at length fell asleep.
But he did not close his eyes during the whole night, he did not even lie down; but sat in his room at the writing-table. He wished to work on something, but the music-paper remained untouched beneath his pen.
How could she so give way, at the first little trial which she had ever had? Why had she spoken of a sacrifice? sacrifice! he would take no sacrifice from her.
* * * * * *
Natalie's reception days were given up under pretext of the illness of his young wife. From that time, Lensky saw most of his friends only outside of his house--his "patronesses" he saw no more.
Natalie was ashamed of her small, pitiful discontent, was ashamed of the scene she had made her husband, and still was foolish enough to rejoice over her victory, and to fully profit by it.
She offered all her intellectual, flattering, charming lovableness to recompense for the loss she had caused him, and to quite win him again for herself. She thought of all his preferences in her housekeeping, which, in the beginning, she had somewhat neglected in ----; with half unconscious slyness, she knew how to profit by his small as well as his great qualities; to attain her aim, knew how to touch his heart as well as to flatter his vanity. In full measure she attained what she strove for. Forgetting all the prudence which his position demanded, he laid just as enthusiastic homage at her feet as in the very first time of his marriage. But she was so charming! And how well her defiant arrogance became her! that arrogance which would bend to no one and only with her loved one melted into passionate submission.
What did the great artist coterie which his wife had repulsed say to all this? Oh, who could trouble one's self about all these people?
Meanwhile, during this happy intoxicated period he had met with one vexation that concerned him very nearly. Three weeks before the appointed date for the production of his "Corsair," the prima donna of the ---- opera, Madame D., an artist of the first rank, for whom he had quite specially written the principal feminine rôle, declared that she would not sing it under any consideration. Lensky knew very well that he had to thank the senseless arrogance of his wife for the sudden opposition of this irritable leader; it was bitter to him; but without telling Natalie a word of it, he choked down this unpleasant affair, and submitted to seeing the part which the artiste had thoroughly learned and brought to such splendid perfection intrusted now to the weak powers of a talented but awkward beginner.
* * * * * *
The evening of the representation came. They were both feverish, he and she; but she fevered in expectation of a great triumph, he trembled before a defeat.
He knew that his work had three things against it: a libretto that, for an opera, was over-finely poetic, and poor in dramatic effect, the weak representation of the principal rôle, and the whole coterie of artists and bohemians in the audience excited against him by the arrogance of his wife. Perhaps his music would save the situation. The music was beautiful, that he knew; he must build on that.
Natalie made the sign of the cross on his forehead and hung a consecrated Byzantine saint's picture, in a strange gold and black enamel frame, around his neck before he went into the fire, that is to say, before he drove to the opera-house to take the baton in his hand. He smiled at this superstitious action and let it happen.
The greatest heroes like to avail themselves of a little celestial protection before a battle.
In the opera-house he found everything in the best condition, courageous, ready for battle. An hour later he mounted the director's rostrum.
Once he turned his head to the audience, and his eyes sought Natalie. There she sat near the stage in a box in the first row, which she shared with the Countess Stolnitzky. She wore a black velvet dress, in her hair sparkled the diamond narcissi which he had given her as bridegroom; around her neck was wound a thick string of pearls which the Empress of Russia had sent him for her once when he played at court. In the whole theatre there was no woman who could compare with her in proud, beaming, and yet indescribably lovely beauty. She smiled at him constrainedly. What was not hidden in that scarcely perceptible smile! For the last time a kind of happy, proud delirium of love lay hold upon him. He knocked on the desk, raised his arm, and the violins began.
With a kind of magnificent, fiery earnestness, and with that, quite classically severe in the musical roundness and connection of the motives, the overture sounded through the crowded hall. It was rather too long, and as the learned ones among the audience remarked, was better suited for the first movement of a symphony than the introduction of an opera. But what of that! the music was beautiful, wonderfully beautiful, full of sad sweetness and quite demon-like, ravishing power. Here, also, sounded the strange Arabian succession of tones again, which was the characteristic of all his compositions, the devil's tones: Asbeïn.
Natalie did not hear a sound, the buzzing in her ears, the beating of her heart was too loud.
The last piercing chord resounded through the hall. What was that? An immense burst of applause, unending bravos; the overture had to be repeated.
It was with difficulty that Natalie could keep from sobbing aloud. Again her smile sought his. A beautiful expression of noble, earnest peace was on his features, but his glance did not answer hers, he had forgotten her for his work.
The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the overture had increased her nervous tension still further.
During the first two acts the opinion remained favorable. After the second act, the Russian ambassador presented himself to Natalie to congratulate her.
While she received his congratulations, still trembling with excitement, she suddenly heard quite loud talking, in a box not far from her.
It was the box of that same Princess C., who was mentioned as particularly musical, and who had invited Lensky to a soirée and passed over Natalie. Between her and another art-loving woman sat Mr. Arnold Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had access to the highest circles of society, that is to say, he was patronized by a couple of ladies who were bored in their "world," and who consequently liked to attract men from some "other world" to them for a short entertainment, not a long engagement, to be amused by them.
"These plebeian men at least take pains to amuse," the ladies were accustomed to remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took pains to amuse.
Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, and stared long and boldly in Natalie's face.
The third act began with an aria by Gualnare, that is to say, with a kind of duet between her and the ocean, which was represented by the orchestra. For a concert piece the number was interesting and original, but peculiarly unsuited to the beginning of the third act of an opera. Only the splendid vocal powers and the poetic comprehension of Madame D., for whom the aria was written, could have saved it; the powers of the beginner who sang the part of Gualnare that evening were not at all equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the exertions of the two preceding acts, sounded almost extinct, her acting was awkward.
Natalie observed the bad impression which this number made on the audience. Anxiously she looked around the theatre: the people were patient, had too much sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to inconsiderately insult the composer.
On the stage, still continued the endless ocean duet. Still, in the same monotonous time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and retreated from them, quite as if she were dancing a pas de deux with the sea. Then Natalie heard laughing; the laughing sounded from the box of Princess C.
Dr. Spatzig bent over to her, smiling, whispered something to her. She laughed--how heartily she laughed! The opera-glasses of many ladies in the boxes sought the Doctor's critical glance; Spatzig laughed, the Princess laughed, the whole theatre laughed.
The aria was at an end, the gallery applauded. "Ss--ss--ss." What was that cutting, piercing sound which killed the applause?
Natalie became white as chalk; her friend sought her hand; Natalie drew it away; no human sympathy could be of use to her.
From that moment the enthusiasm of the audience rapidly declined. The lack of dramatic action in the libretto became more and more significant. More and more difficultly the poor music dragged along amidst a succession of glaring spectacular effects, which monotonously made place for each other without ever forming an interesting contrast. And the music was so beautiful. There was something so heavily majestic in the rhythm, here and there at once a trifle monotonous and over-laden, but in the accompaniment so wonderfully beautiful in spite of all, and furnished with a richness of melody unattainable by any of the other composers of the time, never approaching the trivial, but always remaining noble.
The audience was weary, and like every wearied audience, mocking; its musical comprehension was worn out. From the middle of the fourth act people began to leave the theatre, and when the curtain fell at the close, not a hand moved.
Countess Stolnitzky accompanied Natalie silently down the steps. Natalie got into her carriage and directed it to the stage entrance. She had promised to call for Lensky after the opera. More dead than alive she sat in the pretty coupé and waited. The air was sharp, it was a frosty March night, the stars sparkled as if in cold mockery from the unreachable heavens, quite as if they were laughing to think that once more a child of man had tried to storm this heaven and had so pitiably failed.
A half-hour had passed; at last Natalie sprang from the carriage and hastened up the narrow stairs. There she met Lensky. He was deathly pale, his hat was put on his head differently from usual, in a kind of enterprising and challenging manner; his walk had something negligent, swinging; there was a vagabond trace in his carriage that Natalie had never before perceived in him. He held his cigarette between his teeth and had the little singer on his arm who had to-day impersonated Gualnare in his opera. Many of the singers, as well as the members of the orchestra, came down the steps behind him, a gaudy, witty, whispering throng. For the first time, Natalie remarked a certain similarity, one might almost say a common family resemblance, between her hero and these other "artists." The men all had the same manner of wearing their hats and swaggering in their walk as he had to-day.
Although these men were more than ever repulsive to her, she greeted them with anxious politeness. "I was afraid you were ill," she said, while she glanced sadly and anxiously at Boris. "I have already waited half an hour for you."
"So! I am very sorry," replied he, and his voice sounded rougher than formerly. "I sent a messenger to you, he must have missed you. I cannot go home with you this evening, we"--he looked over his shoulder at the following crowd--"are going to have supper together. After a lost battle the commander must care for the strengthening of his troops." He laughed harshly and forcedly, and touched the hand of the singer who hung on his arm.
"A lost battle!" said Natalie. "Lost--but the first two acts were a great success!"
"'Don Juan' did not succeed at the first representation," remarked some one behind Lensky. He turned around and looked at the man with a comical, threatening gesture; then he said, with the expression of a man with a bad toothache, who yet bursts out with a witticism: "Who laughs last, laughs best!"
Natalie still stood, helpless and desperate, in the middle of the narrow stairs. Her splendid fur cloak had half slipped down from her shoulders; her simple, distinguished toilet stood out in strange relief from the glaring, tumbled, inharmonious, motley evening adornments of the singers.
"You will take cold, wrap yourself up better," said Lensky, while he came up to her and drew the fur up around her neck.
"Will you take me with you to your supper? I would come with the greatest pleasure; je serai gentille avec tout le monde!" she whispered, softly and supplicatingly to him.
"What an idea!" said he, repellently. "No, to-night I sup as a bachelor. You bar the passage. Drive home quite calmly. Adieu!"
He pushed her into the carriage, and went. She put her head out of the window of the coupé to look after him. She saw how he got into a fiacre with the singer; one of the men crawled in after him; then she heard some one laughing, harshly, gipsy-like, was that he? Then came a great rattling of windows, and creaking and rolling of wheels. Her way and his parted. Hurrying by a row of ghostly gas-lights, which all seemed red to her, she rolled away in a great, cold, black darkness. And ten minutes later, weary and miserable, she crept up the steps of her residence. She knew that something terrible had happened, something that not only embittered her present, but would darken the future, that for her much more had gone wrong than the result of an opera.
* * * * * *
"Who knows, perhaps the thing will pull through; even the best operas have sometimes not immediately found approval with the public," said Lensky, with the awkward, forced smile that had not left his lips since the morning after his fiasco. The challenging, gipsy humor with which, in the beginning, he had sought to bluster over his disappointment, had not lasted long. Quiet, weary, and depressed, he dragged himself around as if after a severe illness. Natalie did what she could to be agreeable to him; her heart bled with pity, but she did not venture to approach him.
He avoided her, and if she spoke to him his answers sounded forced or vexed.
To-day, for the first time since the fatal evening, he turned to her with a remark in reference to his work. It was the third day after the first production of the opera, and at breakfast. Natalie had just read to him many criticisms from the newspapers which had arrived. In many, Lensky's magnificent musical gifts were praised.
"Perhaps the thing will pull through," said Lensky, and Natalie replied:
"Naturally, the opera will make a career for itself. You must yourself have forgotten how beautiful your music is, if you can doubt that."
"Is it really beautiful? I really do not know," murmured he. "One is so seldom able to believe it if others shrug their shoulders. To improvise variations on the old theme mon sonnet est charmant is a tasteless occupation."
There was a ring at the door-bell; he listened.
"Do you expect anything?" asked Natalie, and then she accidentally looked at the clock. It was already very late, and the hour at which he formerly had been accustomed to sit down to work was long past. She saw very well that he only trifled with time like a man who is too tormented by inward unrest to be able to resolve on an earnest occupation.
"Yes," he replied. "I do not understand why the Neue Zeit has not yet arrived."
Natalie lowered her eyes. The Neue Zeit was the journal in which Dr. Arnold Spatzig's musical criticism, or rather his musical feuilletons, usually appeared.
"That"--Lensky motioned to the pile of other papers "is all very pretty and pleasant, but it is not decisive. I am anxious to see what Spatzig will say."
"Do you consider Spatzig decisive?" asked Natalie, constrainedly.
"Yes."
"But you told me yourself that his judgment was always one-sided, prejudiced, and superficial; that he was really only a wit and no critic," murmured Natalie.
"I still think so, but nevertheless he has here taken upon himself the monopoly of musical good taste," replied Lensky. "The most intellectual part of the public, that is to say all the subscribers, fancy they can only consider an article of his as true. He has taken out a patent for it, like Marquis, in Paris, for good chocolate. He is witty, which these people like. A criticism is so easily noticed, one always appears intellectual if one cites it, the more malicious it is the better. Until now, Spatzig has spared me, hm--hm--" Boris smiled forcedly. "He even once compared me to Beethoven, but recently he has seemed to avoid me. Have you had anything with him, Natalie?"
Natalie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I cannot endure him," said she; "and it is possible that he has noticed it; in fact, in reference to a certain point, one cannot have patience with a man."
"He surely has not presumed upon you?" Lensky started up angrily.
"No, no! He did not have an opportunity," said Natalie, very arrogantly. "Not that: but he has a way of forcing himself upon one; of looking at a woman----"
"That is to say he has bad manners," said Lensky. "Now----"
At this moment there was another ring at the door-bell. Shortly after the servant brought on a salver a whole pile of newspapers in their wrappings, which had just come by post. Lensky opened them hastily; they were all copies of the same paper--of Fortschritt, and in every copy there was a twelve-column-long notice marked with a blue or black pencil: "A musical enjoyment by design and intention," and with the motto, for title, "From whence the great discord arises which rings through this world (read opera)."
Hastily, Lensky looked at the signature.
"Arnold Spatzig," murmured he, dully. "I did not know that he also wrote for Fortschritt."
"Do not read the thing," said Natalie, who, with feminine quickness, had already glanced over the article. "I beg you; why should you swallow the poison?"
But he shook her roughly from him, bent over the paper, and read half aloud: "If there were a musical 'Our Father,' the last supplicating request would be: deliver us from all evil, but especially from all virtuoso music. By his opera, Lensky has again given us a significant example of how greatly the reproductive activity of an artist hinders the development of his creative powers. His first smaller compositions really had always a certain melodic freshness. But in this last work, Lensky, like all men poor in invention, has shown himself a follower of that inconsolable musical pessimism which regards ennui and a feeling of universal, oppressive discomfort as a sine qua non of every distinguished musical work.
"The public, in a sympathetic frame of mind with the loved and distinguished master, in the beginning of the opera strained their good taste so far that they desired the repetition of the extremely tiresome overture, made up of badly connected motives, reminding one of Meyerbeer, Halévy, Gounod. But with the best intentions, the cut-and-dried wonder brought with them was not proof against the yawning monotony of the never-ending fourth act. Only the grotesque side of the unfortunate opera, which ever became more prominent in the course of the evening, helped the ill-used public over the dry emptiness of this musical desert. One could at least laugh heartily. What a consolation that was for the spectator, but hardly one for those who took part.
"One cannot understand how such an artist of the first rank as Mr. ---- could submit to make himself laughable in the rôle of Conrad...."
Lensky became paler and paler; he reached for a glass of water.
"Do not read any further," begged Natalie. "What does it matter what the liar writes? your music speaks for itself. This evening you will see how the public will applaud you, will receive you, to recompense you for this pitiful insult."
The second representation of "The Corsair" was fixed for that evening.
There was another ring at the door-bell; the servant brought a letter. Lensky broke it open hastily, and with a furious gesture threw it away, struck his fist on the table, and sprang up.
"What is it?" called Natalie, beside herself.
"Nothing; a trifle; the opera is postponed; the tenor has announced himself ill," said Lensky, cuttingly. "He has no pleasure in making himself laughable a second time. It is over;" passing the palm of his hand under his chin, with the gesture by which one understands that some one has been executed.
Natalie rushed up to him, but he impatiently motioned her away, and hurried by her to the door. All at once he remained standing, reached under his collar, tore off the little gold chain with the saint's picture which Natalie had hung round his neck before the first representation of "The Corsair," and flung it at her feet. Then he went into his study. She heard how he locked the door behind him.
How benumbed she still stood on the same spot where he had shaken her off from him--he had shaken her off!
How he must suffer to pain her so! Then she bent down to the poor little amulet which he had thrown away. She understood him. She had never been lacking in sentimental-poetic manners, but when it was necessary to sacrifice a humor for him, her love had not sufficed.
Her fault was great, but the punishment was fearful.
THIRD BOOK.
A short time after the fiasco of his opera Lensky resigned his office in ----. His position there had become unbearable to him. He had made no plans for the distant future; for the present he travelled with his family to Paris.
How happy Natalie could have felt here if the still depressed mood of Lensky had not caused her such heavy anxiety. Not that he had further shown himself in the slightest degree disagreeable to her--no, not a single direct reproof crossed his lips; he even, without speaking a word about it, begged her pardon for his momentary roughness by a thousand silent attentions. But what good did that do her? His happiness was gone; he was gloomy and taciturn. Faint-hearted, like all very self-indulgent men, even doubting his formerly revered talent as composer, for the moment he had completely lost his belief in himself.
She did what she could to distract him--all was in vain. And all might have been so pleasant! The Parisian artist world was so large that she quite easily, avoiding all impure elements contained therein, could associate only with those who were lovable, interesting, and sympathetic. Besides, she was now ready for the most exaggerated concessions. If Lensky had wished to write a ballet she would have invited the ballet dancers to breakfast, and been intimate with the première danseuse. The lovely imprudence which, even with her uncommon intellectual gifts, still made the foundation of her petted, undisciplined being, drove her from one exaggeration to another.
He gave a succession of concerts, and all Paris lay at his feet. Natalie sat in one of the first rows in the concert hall and rejoiced over the triumphs of her husband. Occasionally, if the hour for the concert was early, she brought her little son with her and taught him to be proud of his father. Little Nikolai looked charming in his Russian costume, with the broad velvet trousers and silk shirt. He always sat there quite brave and quiet, with the solemn expression of face of a child whom one has taken to church for the first time; only if the applause burst out quite too loudly, he became very excited and stood up on his chair in order to see his father better. Then Natalie kissed him, and blushed at her lack of restraint. And around them the audience whispered: "That is his child"--"Tiens! il a de la chance!"--"Ils sont adorables tous les deux!"--"On dit qu'elle est une princesse!"
After the concert she went with the little fellow in the green-room to fetch her husband. The most beautiful women in Paris crowded around him. He received their homage quite coolly, and while Natalie, smiling and polite, did honor to his fame, he played with his boy, whom he overwhelmed with caresses, without being at all confused by the presence of strangers. "Admire this if you must admire something!" he burst out once, angry at the intrusive enthusiasm of a very pretty American woman, and with that he raised the child on a table to show him to her. "He is worth the trouble," he growled, and truly such was the case!
One day, about the middle of May, when Natalie, somewhat out of breath, holding her boy with one hand, and a bunch of red roses in the other, came home to lunch, she found Lensky with two strangers in the little hotel drawing-room. One of them was a young man with long hair and short neck, in whom she recognized a famous piano virtuoso; the second, a small, dried-up man, with a yellow, hard, sharp face, she saw for the first time.
At her appearance they both withdrew. Lensky accompanied them out.
"How you have hurried," said he smiling, when he reëntered the room. "You are quite heated!"
"Yes, I hurried very much; I was afraid I would be late to lunch. I know how you hate unpunctuality." And then she sat down on the sofa, and handed her hat and shawl to the nurse, who had come in to get Nikolinka--a nurse by the name of Palagea, in a Russian national costume which created a furore on the boulevard.
"Why did you not take a carriage, little goose?" asked he.
"To economize, Boris Nikolaivitch," replied she, with mischievous earnestness. Then laughing up at him with her great tender eyes, she added: "Besides, the doctor has expressly advised me to take more exercise."
"The doctor?" said he, anxiously. "Do you feel ill? Why did you consult a physician?"
"Yes, why?" murmured she, softly. "Sit down on the sofa by me, so that I can whisper something to you."
"What are you talking about?" said he, hoarsely, without stirring. "What do you mean? What?"
"You are fabulously uncomprehending to-day," laughed she, and went up to him. "One cannot scream such a thing across the whole room, and as the mountain will not come to Mahomet"--she had now become very red; laying her hand on his shoulder, she whispered: "O Boris; can you still not guess?... I am so glad!"
"Natalie!" he burst out. "You do not mean to say" ... He shook her from him, stamped his foot, and with a furious exclamation left the room.
Ten minutes later, when he entered the little dining-room where they had served lunch, Natalie's maid announced that he must not wait for her mistress, as she was feeling ill. He hurried to her bedroom. She sat on a sofa, her hands in her lap. Her great eyes stared into the distance, she looked like a corpse.
He sat down by her, drew her on his knee, and overwhelmed her with caresses.
"You are right to be angry, quite right. I was detestable," said he; "but you know what a bear you have for a husband. It is only because I love you so dearly that now, just now, the thing is so inconvenient. Oh, my little dove, my heart!" He pressed the palms of her hands to his lips and stroked her cheeks.
Every vexation melted away in the warmth of his manner. She suddenly began to sob, but not from grief.
"Do you think, then, that I would not have been glad?" he said to her tenderly. "But now, do you see, just now----"
Then he told her the state of affairs. The man in the Havana brown overcoat was the famous impressario Morinsky, with whom Lensky had just made an engagement for a concert tour in the United States. Morinsky had offered him a small fortune. "You know how hard it is for me to part from you," he concluded. "I wished to take you with me--you and the boy, for he can put off school for another year. I thought it was the most favorable moment, and now--it is so stupid, so horribly stupid!"
She had listened very quietly; now she raised her head and said uneasily:
"And now you naturally will have to give up the American project?"
"That is impossible," replied he, turning his face from her, "but I will try--that is, I will put off my departure in any case until the great event is over."
"And then?" She had slipped down from his knee and walked up and down the room uneasily. "And then?" she repeated, while she beat on the floor quite imperiously with the tip of her little foot.
"Then," said he slowly. "Well, then you must either decide to accompany me and leave the children behind, or I must go alone."
"How long will you stay away?" she asked with short breath.
"Eight months, ten months."
"So--ten months!" she spoke slowly. "And you will part from me--voluntarily, without compelling necessity--for ten months?"
Her face had become ashy, the words fell harsh and cutting from her dry lips.
"You must not take the thing so desperately," replied Lensky, with an embarrassment which did not escape her. "Ten months are soon over."
Something that sounded half like a laugh, half like a cry of anguish escaped her lips. She stroked the hair back from her temples with both hands. Her eyes had suddenly become unnaturally large, and were opened uncommonly wide. They were no longer the eyes of a usually wise woman.
"Ten months!" she murmured, with extinguished voice, like one who speaks in the midst of an oppressive dream, "ten months--do you no longer remember how you used to miss me, if it was only a question of weeks, of days, and not--ten months! But this is no separation, this is a final parting, this is the end of all! Oh, do not look at me so!--I am not crazy, I know what I am saying--I know very well! You will come back--certainly you will come back, if no malicious illness snatches you away during your journey; but how will you come back? Like a stranger you will return under your own roof, and a stranger, from that hour, will you remain. You will have acquired other customs, other needs; the tender restrictions of family life will confine you like a forced burden! The good, and magnificent, and beautiful in you will still exist, because it is immortal like everything that is god-like; but it will be grown wild and soiled, and I will no longer be able to force my way through what has towered between me and your heart! And, more than all that, the sweet voice which, until now, has whispered such wonderful songs within you, will be silenced in the confusion of your wandering life; your genius will no longer be able to express itself, it will from then burn in you like a great unrest, and you will feel the treasure which Providence has implanted in you as an oppressive burden, and will no longer be able to find the magic word which can lift this treasure!"
He stared gloomily before him. "Ah, Boris! do not sin against yourself, because I have sinned against you," Natalie began once more, with hoarse, broken voice. "Do not let your wings be broken by this first disappointment. Your opera was wonderfully beautiful--yes--but it was not the best that you can give! Give your best, it will stand so high that the hand of envy can no longer reach it. Have patience, sacrifice the virtuoso to the composer in you, and you will see what a splendid reward you will reap!"
With heavily contracted brows, he listened to this speech, vibrating with desperation. When Natalie had ended, he remained silent. She believed she had conquered. Leaning against him she laid both arms around his neck, and whispered to him: "You will stay, Boris--will you not?--you will stay!"
For a little while he let her stay, then he freed himself from her arms, as one frees one's self from a shackle, and called out: "It cannot be--torment me no longer--I must go!" With that he sprang up to leave the room. At the door he turned round to Natalie, and said: "Are you coming? Lunch will be cold."
"Presently!" said Natalie, "presently!" She shivered, she felt the chill of a great fright in all her members. It was worse than she had believed! Something allured him away. After the first unpleasant surprise at the frustration of his plans had disappeared, he rejoiced at the opportunity of being able to free himself from the chain, and to separate himself from his family for a time. What she had feared for the future had already arrived--the gypsy element in his nature had awakened!
* * * * * *
The agreement between Lensky and the impressario was really completed, the contract was signed, Lensky's departure fixed for the beginning of October. Meanwhile, he would pass the summer quietly with his wife, in the country, in the vicinity of Paris.
The place which Natalie chose was about an hour's journey from Paris, and perhaps fifteen minutes from the railway-station, a charming old house in the shadiest corner of a park, in the midst of which a large castle stood empty. The castle was modern; the house, on the contrary, a carefully reconstructed ruin of the time of Francis First. The castle was called "Le Château des Ormes," and the small house "L'Erémitage." The last owner had restored it, in order that his favorite daughter might pass her honeymoon there. Since the daughter had died the Hermitage stood empty, and to reside in the castle was painful to the owner. Both were to let. Lensky left the choice to his wife. What would she have done with the large castle? The Hermitage pleased her better. The windows were all irregular, one small and narrow, another very broad, all surrounded by artistically carved and voluted stone framings. The trees grew up high above the roof, and through the whole day sang sweet, dreamy songs, to which a little brook, that ran close by the house, furnished a harmonic accompaniment.
The ground floor was built in accordance with the architecture of the early Renaissance period, with brown beams across the ceilings of the room, and artistic wainscoting on the walls. Gigantic marble mantels, iron chandeliers and sconces, and heavy furniture did what they could to transport the spectator's imagination back to the much sung old times of gay King Francis. At the right and left of the entrance door, set far back in its carved niche, grew lilies, tall and slender; they were in full bloom when the married pair moved in, and their white heads nodded in a friendly manner through the windows of the rooms even with the ground. Sage, lavender, and centifolias bloomed at their feet, tall rose-bushes nodded a fragrant greeting to them from above. The branches of the old trees before the windows were thick enough to partially exclude the sunbeams if they became too intrusive; not thick enough to completely bar the way for them.
In this lonely solitude, Natalie fought a last time for her happiness. She tried to make her whole home as attractive and poetic as possible, so that in Lensky's remembrance something might remain for which he must long. She no longer tormented him with jealous, isolating tenderness, but cared for his distraction and intellectual as well as artistic recreation. She knew how to allure not only the first musicians in Paris, but celebrities of the most different kinds from the capital and surrounding villas, to the Hermitage; earnest men of lofty aims and noble endeavors, together with an animation and susceptibility which did away with the hindering respect which towers between every plain, modest child of man and great people. It always gave Natalie pleasure to see Lensky in the company of these prominent men. He grew in such surroundings.
He was never very talkative; his intellectual capabilities were of a heavy calibre, unsuited for the purposes of small talk. But how he listened, what questions he asked! Then, quite without haste, he would make some remark so peculiarly sharp and far-reaching in reference to some impending political, artistic, or literary question, that, every time, an astonished silence would follow.
One of the guests once remarked: "If Lensky mingles in the conversation, it is as if one fired a cannon between pistol shots."
He was not one-sided in his interests, as other musicians. When one learned to know him more intimately, for every accurate observer it had always the appearance that his musical capabilities formed only a part of his universally abnormally gifted nature.
* * * * * *
Quietly and still animatedly passed the days, weeks, and months. Natalie never spoke of the approaching separation.
An inexplicable discomfort tormented Lensky. Natalie had guessed rightly--he had concluded the engagement with Morinsky with quite precipitate haste, not only in order thereby to win the opportunity of acquiring with one stroke a large sum of money which would put an end to his pecuniary difficulties, but because in intercourse with the old friends of his bachelor days in ---- he had first significantly realized how much he had had to restrain himself to live morally and uprightly at the side of his wife; and because his gypsy nature, bound for years, now demanded its rights.
Still it vexed him that Natalie remained so calm in the face of the approaching parting. Now, when the farewell drew near, his heart failed him. Did she, then, no longer love him?
The thought was unbearable to him, prevented him from working. He wrote everything wrong on the note paper.
The lilies were dead, the days became short, and the first leaves fell in the grass, but the foliage was still thick, only here and there one saw a yellow spot in a bluish green tree, and the rustling had no longer the old soft sound.
"The trees have lost their voice, they have become hoarse, the old melting sound is gone!" said Natalie. The roses, in truth bloomed more beautifully than in summer; still one saw, significantly, the approach of autumn, and Lensky had the repugnant feeling that near by something lay dying.
His work did not please him. Three times already he had heard Natalie pass by his door; each time he had thought, now she will come in; he had already stretched his arms out to her, but she did not come. He threw away his pen and sprang up to look for her.
It was a late September afternoon. It had rained for three days, and the air was cool.
Natalie sat in the brown-wainscoted ground-floor sitting-room, in one of the gigantic, high-backed arm-chairs near the chimney, in which flickered a gay wood fire. The windows were open. The noise from without of the rain drops softly gliding down between the leaves, the blustering of the high swollen brook, mingled with the crackling and popping of the burning wood.
In the middle of the room, on a large table with a dark-red cover, stood a copper bowl filled with champagne-colored Gloire de Dijon roses. From without came the melancholy odor of autumnal decay and mingled with the sweet breath of the flowers.
The veil of twilight sank down from the mighty rafters of the ceiling. The corners of the large, somewhat low room were already, as it were, rounded off by brown shadows. Freakish, pale reflections slid over the dark wainscoting, and over the brass and copper dishes which adorned it.
Little Kolia crouched on a stool before his mother, and with both tiny elbows rested on her lap, gazed earnestly and attentively up at her.
One could think of nothing more charming than this mother and this child. Involuntarily Lensky's heart beat high in his breast. "How beautiful my home is, how happy I am here. Why am I really going away?" he asked himself.
"Ah!" cried Natalie when he entered, pleased and at the same time surprised, for his appearance at this hour was something quite unusual. "Do you wish anything?"
He shook his brown, defiant head silently and sat down near the chimney opposite her. The little boy had sprung up, embarrassed, and now leaned against his mother, with his little arm round her neck.
"You have been telling him fairy tales," began Lensky.
"Oh, no! I told him of the ocean, and how one lives and is housed on the wide boundless water--of the ocean and of America. Before it was too dark we were busy with something much more important," said Natalie, and she pointed to a low child's table which was covered with writing materials and lined paper. "Show papa what we have finished, Nikolinka."
The little boy became very red and drew his brows together. "But, mamma," said he, excitedly stamping his foot, "why do you tell that? It is a surprise."
His mother stroked the offended child's cheek soothingly. "We will not give papa your letter to read, only show it to him, so that he can be pleased with it. Bring it, Nikolinka."
Resistingly the little fellow freed himself from his mother, then he brought the document, which was concealed behind a vase, and carried it, with importance as well as embarrassment, to his father. On the already extensively sealed envelope, between three lines, stood the unformed, but neatly and industriously written letters: